I freakin’ love Fall. It’s the bees-knees. This time of year makes me so very, very happy!

That’s partly why I scheduled my upcoming Voice Recital for next week! If all dates are available to me, I’ll sing in one of my favorite months, on one of my favorite days of the week. Call me crazy, but I love Tuesdays.

I also plan to shove a bunch of pumpkin pie in my face after the show. 😀

It’s time for me to check-in with my goals and see what’s been working, and what’s hanging on by a thread.

Honestly, my voice recital has become one of the top priorities, so other things are taking a back seat while I squeeze in time to prepare, practice, and rehearse.

I’m doing this recital for many reasons, the top one being that I love to sing and share awesome songs with people. I also needed to set a lofty goal for myself that I knew I couldn’t back down from in order to get myself singing again (well, singing more complicated songs than “The Wheels on the Bus” and “Itsy Bitsy Spider”).

Parenthood is all-consuming, so I’ve had little time to do things, like practice, since I had Pookie. I wake up, do some self-care, care for Pookie when she wakes up, drop her off at school, go to work, work until the last-minute, drive to pickup Pookie, drive home, throw dinner together, get Pookie to bed, and then I have about an hour to do “things” before I start heading to bed myself.

Not much time for focused voice practice.

I do sing to Pookie throughout the day when we are home together, but it’s a lot of Frozen and Taylor Swift radio. Kids seriously dig that stuff. Whatcha gonna do? She yells loudly when I sing arias.

For self-care, in addition to continuing to meditate several times a week, I’ve started going to 6am yoga twice a week. My at-home exercising was not quite cutting it. Once I felt ready for more challenging workouts, I quickly remembered that I won’t push myself without the social pressure of a class.

On yoga days, I don’t get much else done in the mornings before Pookie gets up, so I’m attempting to cram in more on the other days.

I also haven’t been waking up as early recently because Rob actually has a lot more free time right now. This is a really good thing! It does make me a lot less productive though. 😉 But, I’d rather hang out with him in the evenings, than get up 4am. It’s a constant balancing act!

My biggest goal right now is pretty simple. Take care of myself. I’m in “recital mode” which means that I’m constantly checking in with the “nasty voices” that tell me I’ll forget words or trip on stage.

I keep removing their power by reminding myself through mantras, “I got this,” and by coming back to my “why” for why I’m doing this to myself in the first place. Preparing to sing 14 songs in front of a bunch of people can be a bit torturous. But the actual singing of them in concert is like Heaven. Singers, am I right??

Welp, that pretty much sums up my life right now: self-care, hubby, Pookie, and recital, with a side of meditation, yoga, and eating lots of veggies. Things are going pretty good! 🙂